a small murder of crows
by Merida's Hair
Summary: "Her forehead was warm, still warm, underneath his lips. He waited for it, the burst of light and color and hope that would make everything right again. But this was Neverland, where time doesn't pass, and hope dies in it's treacherous waters." Henry-centric, implied Swan Queen.


A/N: I went back and forth about posting this fic, as I tried and changed my mind when I first wrote it. This is my apology in advance for this fic, and plea to not come after me with fireballs. This is literally the _exact_ opposite thing I want to happen in the show.

* * *

_"…..Mom? Mommy?"_

_Her forehead was warm, still warm, underneath his lips. He waited for it, the burst of light and color and hope that would make everything right again. But this was Neverland, where time doesn't pass, and hope dies in it's treacherous waters._

_He tried again, and there was nothing. He heard voices, his family behind him, a hand on his shoulder. Every sound was warped, the silence of the forest following the fight the loudest of all. A ringing in his ear, the sharp squawk of a bird overhead._

_She was smiling, and he was screaming._

* * *

Henry thought he'd never understand her.

Henry thought good was good and evil was evil and that was _that_.

Even as the barriers crumpled before him, (his sobbing as he held onto her, apologizing again and again and forgiveness searing in his throat and as he held her, hoping she understood), he held onto the belief with the white-knuckled grip he held onto his book of fairytales.

He came home, numb, seeing everything and nothing, refusing to be comforted, lashing out with words that he _knew_ hurt just so someone would understand what he felt, locking himself in his bedroom, his old one, with the navy wallpaper and iron man posters, the lego sets she got him for Christmas five years ago. He'd sat on the bed, the mattress groaned slightly as he sunk as far as he could into it. A chill permeated the air, and he could see his breath, heavy, labored.

He'd wanted to shriek. He'd wanted to _destroy_. It was a just a moment of blind, pure rage, as pure as Emma's magic, as pure as he thought everyone should be but instead of light filling his heart, he thought he could feel a dark spot brewing and stirring and coming _alive_ while he felt absolutely dead everywhere else. A sound burbled up from his throat, escaped without him meaning it to and it sounded like the Neverland sirens. Inhuman, wretched. He barely recognized it as coming from him. He kicked the wall where it was weakest and his foot went through, the wallpaper breaking in half with a sickening tear, dust coating his pant leg.

He breathed once. Twice.

Henry raced over to the bookshelf and grabbed his most prized possessions, the book he thought would save them and turned to the pages where her face laid in cruel elegy. It was only then, seeing her face, his finger brushing her painted cheekbones that the tears built up, spilled over, the sobs inward and causing his whole being to shake.

With rage.

With _anger_.

He rips out the picture. He rips up the words, hoping that by destroying them he'd break their meaning and the world would make sense again. She'd hurt him, she'd hurt him badly, but he knew in that moment what they say about love. How it can make that hurt so much worse. How it can balm it at the same time. How it can make him in this moment just not care and want one more hug, one more smile that softened the sharp contours of her face, one more piece of lasagna with too many pepper flakes. How it can make him want to find Pan, although he was already dead and gone, and kill him himself.

He's never wanted to kill before.

The desire spreads through his veins, makes him feel infinitely powerful, and infinitely small. Revolted by his own thoughts. If he had the chance, that day, as he stands up and closes his fists and shakes, surrounded by the pages of a cursed story, (more cursed than this town has ever been), he would take it.

And that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. Causes his eyes to widen, his fists to unfurl.

The thought scares him more than the nights ahead knowing his mother won't be just a phone call away. But not as much as the last time he saw her face. Ashen, but pink still, and sharp, wrong angles on a pile of tree branches. A red bloom, like a flower, in her chest. And how at peace she looked. How it was the only time he'd seen her seen so peaceful.

He remembered little but her face, how he held her cheeks and willed life back into her chest.

How Emma pulled him away.

How they _left her there._

He picks up the picture and sits on his bed, feeling his weight once more sink into the mattress. This wasn't _supposed_ to happen. Good defeats evil. Good _always_ wins. But what happens when the concepts blend together? What happens when sacrifice seems so meaningless? What good is _good_ if he'll never see his mother again? In the last moments, she was good, but perhaps she always was somewhere.

She saved him.

And he just wanted to_ understand._ Why she was so sad, why she felt the need to hurt everyone, why she hurt him, why he was _starting to understand some of these things_, what this meant for the goodness within him.

How long before he started to pull out hearts too?

_No_. No he wouldn't. She wouldn't like that. He lay down in his bed, willing his racing thoughts to leave so that he may have a moment's a rest.

A part of him knows that he'll always be restless now.

* * *

When he wakes, Emma is stroking his hair.

He almost says _Mom_, but the word feel traitorous for the first time. Emma is his mom too, he's known that for a while, and he loves having Emma in his life, but the word is too raw, and his throat aches from crying.

"You did a number on that book, kid."

He remembers and rolls over, doesn't want to think about it. The thoughts flash in his mind, _her smile_, _her sneer towards Pan, her making sure he was no where near Pan's fatal blows, her last ditch effort to kill Pan succeeding, him cheering and her falling and falling and-_

"Hey, hey, Henry….oh, kid."

He's crying again, and it's whimpers instead of sobs. She continues to comb her fingers through his hair, and he leans into the touch after a few minutes. He wonders if anyone stroked his mother's hair after her true love died, or after her mother died.

_Probably not_. He sniffles.

"We're going to be okay, kid. We _are_. I promise. She…..she made sure of that." And he hears a waver in his mother's strong voice, that resilient voice he searched for in Boston, and he turns around to see unshed tears in the corner of her eyes, and her expression is almost forced, a tight smile, softened eyes. He remembers then, how Emma had stroked a finger down his mother's cheek, ran a hand through her hair, brushed the dust off her black coat. He didn't know what to make of it, because adult emotions are so, so confusing.

But Emma cared about his mother, that was certain. Somehow, against all notions of logic.

And he wonders what it would have been like for them to be something like a misshapen family. He sees her smiling again in the back of his mind.

"I know." He says, and he holds her hand tries to tell her it's okay to cry too. "I know."

He doesn't, but he at least knows the sun will rise tomorrow, and life will move on, and Emma will pretend to be okay too.

He doesn't know if it's comforting, but he holds Emma's hand and feels warmth in his chest and pain and the anger still lurking in the back of his heart, and he wonders when the pain will just dull into a numbness. And when that numbness will be everything. But he hopes he and Emma will still be holding hands through it all.

He hopes they'll never be alone.

(Like she was. Like Emma was, when Henry found her.)

(He hopes, with everything inside him, that she's not alone anymore either).


End file.
